Hello and welcome back to my blog!😊

Todays little adventure took myself, Mick and Chris from the market town of Bingham in Nottinghamshire to Radcliffe -on -Trent. From here we caught a bus back to Bingham – we all delighted in using our OAP bus passes 😊.

It was a 9 mile walk that took us past the old RAF base at Newton, through the village of Shelford and then, adjacent to the river Trent, along its banks and cliffs to reach our destination at Radcliffe.

Chris had not done this walk previously whereas myself and Mick had – in fact, it is a walk that Mick particularly likes, so he was relishing it.

Leaving Bingham we passed a group of women running followed by another, larger group, riding bikes – someone mentioned that today is International Women’s Day so maybe they were out celebrating the day?

It was quite a chilly start but thankfully as the morning wore on the sun came out. We crossed the busy A46 via the pedestrian bridge followed soon after by a level-crossing on the railway line from Nottingham to Grantham (and beyond). We just missed two trains passing which was an indication to us that we were safe to cross.

We ambled on at a fairly slow pace and soon we were passing close to the former RAF base Newton with its iconic building. A competition had developed between Mick and Chris over who could tell the worst joke – Mick won hands down 😊.

The RAF station officially opened in July 1940 to accommodate two squadrons. It used grass as the runways. The first operational aircraft to use the airfield were Fairey Battles but soon the twin engined Vickers Wellington arrived. From July 1941 bomber aircraft were gradually moved to other bases and Newton began its new role as a training station. In particular Polish airmen serving with the RAF trained here. Later the station was used for RAF police and police dog training. Newton closed as an RAF station in March 2001.

There certainly were a lot of sheep grazing in the fields close to the former base. Next, we were off to the village of Shelford. Along the way we took a stop by a bench with a view and enjoyed a break.

From our viewpoint we could see that down below the fields looked very wet so we did a detour around the worst of it and eventually arrived in Shelford

There is a very nice looking church in Shelford and, curiously, on the clock tower, the roman numerals on the clock faces for 4 are incorrect. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I seem to recall this was done by the clock maker to distinguish his work from that of others.

Passing gardens full of daffodils we headed towards the river Trent.

On reaching the Trent we walked along the embankment enjoying the views of the river and headed for Radcliffe.

We had a short uphill section to climb above the cliffs along the side the river. Chris was not looking forward to the uphill but it wasn’t as bad as he thought! Looking through the trees we could still see the river below us.

It wasn’t too long before we reached the bus stop in Radcliffe and caught the bus (they run every 10 mins which is superb) back to Bingham.

Everyone agreed that it had been a good walk and we look forward to the next. Maybe, the quality of the jokes will have improved by then? We live in hope!

Happy Walking! 😊🚶‍♂️